Vachier-Lagrave Wins Opening Blitz As Norway Chess Takes Off | Update: VIDEO

On Monday morning GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave traveled from León, Spain via Paris to Stavanger. He arrived just minutes before the afternoon's press conference and eventually he won the Norway Chess blitz tournament in the evening.

It was only in April, during the Shamkir Chess tournament, that Vachier-Lagrave was invited to the 2015 Norway Chess tournament. At that moment he had already signed a contract with the Masters Tournament in León, and so he was playing chess in Spain on Sunday, and in Norway on Monday.

Check out our video report of the first day in Stavanger:

He traveled by car from Léon to Madrid and then flew to Paris and further to Stavanger on Monday morning. For a moment it seemed that the French GM might encounter some problems...

After a very nice time in Leon, time to hit Stavanger! Everything going smoothly until "technical issue, we have to change the plane"

— MVL (@Vachier_Lagrave) June 15, 2015

...but eventually everything ended all right: Vachier-Lagrave arrived in time at Stavanger airport. His name wasn't there, but instead Karjakin's could be seen, as the airport crew had mistakenly used last year's list to welcome the players:

MVL arrived in the hotel just minutes before the opening press conference. By then, nobody guessed that he would claim victory in the blitz tournament later that day.

The press conference started with some welcoming words by Stavanger's mayor Christine Sagen Helgø, and then it was time for the new Grand Chess Tour to be opened. Its ambassador, Garry Kasparov, had the honor to do so.

“It's an important day for chess,” Kasparov said. “I guess it's the first time since the GMA World Cup in the 1980s that the world champion is competing with other leading players on a regular basis.”

Rumors were finally confirmed that the plan is to include a fourth tournament in Jakarta, Indonesia in the 2016 Grand Chess Tour. The main idea is to have tournaments in all continents, “so that all the continents will have a chance to see all the best players in action,” explained Kasparov. “Wish us luck,” he added.

Then, all players were invited on stage, and all were asked one or two questions. Hikaru Nakamura had told Norwegian media that he finds Magnus Carlsen's style a bit dry, and he elaborated: “Well, it was an honest answer, I mean, he's the most consistent.

“Sometimes you have to play that way to be the most consistent and to not lose. That's why he's the world champion.”

Carlsen explained why he recently stopped drinking orange juice. “It's a way to be more calm during games,” he said, adding: “Unfortunately that will lead to more dry, boring chess!”

At the end of the day, Carlsen would finish the theme like this:

Carlsen to TV 2: "Today I played "Nakamura chess" and that just isn't enough." #NorwayChess pic.twitter.com/31gyRbWxua

— Tarjei J. Svensen (@TarjeiJS) June 15, 2015

Players, organizers, journalists, sponsors and guests were then taken by boat to the beautiful Flor & Fjære island. The media representatives arrived first, and for them there was time enough for a tour by the daughter-in-law of the owner of the island, which is basically a family business.

It started as a farm in 1965, even though it was an island with mostly rocks. The farmer started to plant flowers for his wife to make bouquets, and this kept expanding. The garden is 10 ten times as big as seven years ago.

Many of the flowers only last for one season; each year 50,000 new ones are planted.

At about 5:30pm the blitz tournament started in the island's restaurant. The time control was 3 minutes plus 2 seconds increment, and the tiebreaks were the number of games as Black, the number of games won, the number ofgames won as Black, and finally a coin toss.

Vachier-Lagrave was the only player to start with 3.0/3, and that included a win over the world champ. The start was similar to their game in Shamkir in April, but then something went wrong for Black and Carlsen got a winning position — only to spoil it afterward.

It was Nakamura who inflicted the first loss upon the Frenchman — rather convincingly:

In the same round Carlsen tried the King's Gambit as White against Levon Aronian. Instead of trying to refute it, the Armenian latter chose one of the many solid variations, and easily equalized. It became exciting briefly, but then it was a draw anyway.

Big mistakes are inevitable at this time control. The blunder of the day was by Vishy Anand, who was winning by move 22, but with seconds on the clock went from +9 to -9 in a queen ending:

It might have been the most dramatic round in fact, since the following game was played at the same time on one of the other boards. Poor Jon Ludvig Hammer spoiled several good position, and here he was just com-ple-te-ly winning:

Norway Chess 2015 | Blitz, Final Standings

#	Name	Rtg	Perf	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	Pts	SB
1	Vachier-Lagrave	2723	2954		0	1	½	½	1	½	1	1	1	6.5/9
2	Nakamura	2802	2900	1		0	½	½	1	0	1	1	1	6.0/9
3	Carlsen	2876	2850	0	1		½	1	½	0	1	½	1	5.5/9	22.50
4	Giri	2773	2861	½	½	½		1	0	½	½	1	1	5.5/9	22.00
5	Anand	2804	2857	½	½	0	0		1	1	½	1	1	5.5/9	20.75
6	Aronian	2780	2820	0	0	½	1	0		½	1	1	1	5.0/9
7	Grischuk	2781	2744	½	1	1	½	0	½		0	0	½	4.0/9
8	Topalov	2798	2660	0	0	0	½	½	0	1		0	1	3.0/9
9	Caruana	2805	2614	0	0	½	0	0	0	1	1		0	2.5/9
10	Hammer	2677	2514	0	0	0	0	0	0	½	0	1		1.5/9

You can download the full PGN file with all blitz games here at TWIC.

“It's definitely not the most important thing here but of course it's good to play some decent chess, for once in a while,” Vachier-Lagrave told Chess.com. “Hopefully it will give me some inspiration for the real tournament.”

Very pleasantly surprised with my blitz play today. Hope it will help in the next few days when the business starts!

— MVL (@Vachier_Lagrave) June 15, 2015

According to the regulations, in order of their place in the blitz standings the players could choose their lot number. The organizers let the first five players choose, and then assigned the other lot numbers themselves for the other five players.

For a while, wrong pairings circulated on the internet. When Alexander Grischuk complained (because he had specifically asked about it before the first round), he got to choose anyway.

His and Hammer's name were changed, and eventually the following pairings came about: 

Norway Chess 2015 | Schedule & Pairings

The Norway Chess tournament runs June 15-26 in the Stavanger region. | Games via TWIC